


pandæmonia

by autumnstwilight (sewohayami)



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Body Horror, Cosmogony Zine, Gen, Horror, Pre-Canon, Starscourge (Final Fantasy XV)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-03
Updated: 2019-12-03
Packaged: 2021-02-26 05:55:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,482
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21658645
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sewohayami/pseuds/autumnstwilight
Summary: A hunter pursues his quarry into a sickened forest.(Written for Cosmogony Zine, Spread of the Starscourge Era)
Comments: 4
Kudos: 6





	pandæmonia

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to the mods for organizing and accepting me into this great project! I was pleased to be able to explore Eos and the Starscourge from a different perspective to the one seen in canon.

Beyond the swaying treetops, the twisted antlers of the white Anak glinted like a crown in the pale light of dawn. Its footsteps were soundless, but there was a rustling, a creak and snap of branches as it browsed the green foliage, sending birds flying from their nighttime roost in keening circles. Within these bursts of noise, the hunter moved, relying on the animal's sounds to mask his own. Wet with dew, the earth sank under his feet.

The woods were deep and untouched, mist extending from the roots to the branches above. The stag took on a ghostly visage when blanketed by fog, so that one might not have believed that it was real. It stepped lightly over the same tangles of vines and brambles that snatched at the hunter’s ankles, as though it glided on air.

He moved with practiced caution, knowing that his quarry may flee at the slightest disturbance. And what quarry it was, antlers each the length of a man’s arm span, hide of white with only the faintest grey markings. He had journeyed many days to find the beast, since he had first heard the tale spreading among the hunters, he had known that the prize must be his. He wore a cloak of grey Coeurl fur, taken from a previous conquest, pulled close against the morning chill. Spear grasped in a calloused hand, he wore a machete at his hip and a second, shorter knife next to it. Above all, he carried an unshakable faith, not merely in the Gods above, nor in his own skill, but in the balance of the world and his place within it. There was magic in the land. The spirits would guide him, he need only listen.

He picked his way through the branches on the hidden ground, drawing close at last. The animal paused and pricked its ears, and he stood as a statue, scarcely daring to breathe. Patient, he counted his heartbeats until the tension drained, and the creature returned to browsing. He raised the spear to his shoulder, pulled back, a breath, released.

And a raven burst from the treetops with a creaking call. The stag jolted, lifting its forehooves from the ground, and the spear hit low, a wound but not a kill. It bolted through the trees, the spear embedded in its shoulder clashing against the saplings and branches, trailing blood in its wake.

The hunter grunted. He had hoped to land a more serious blow, on an animal this size such a wound was not fatal. But its path through the woods was clear, marked with blood spatter and broken branches, and so he followed at a brisk but easy pace. If he could follow, then the stag would eventually succumb, caught between terror and exhaustion, unable to stop and lick its wounds.

And so he went. Now there was no need for stealth, it was in his interests to let the creature know that he was here, to keep it running. He hacked away at the undergrowth as he followed, clearing the branches and vines that the long-legged stag had not trampled. As he swung his blade, he sang, with puffing breath and faltering key, a song from his own village.

_ The king, he comes with sword in hand _ _  
_ _ To cast the blight out from the land _ _  
_ _ Fires burn and shine their light _ _  
_ _ Waging war against the night _ __  
_ Great and small consumed by flame _ _  
_ _ For none are to return again_

He grinned, and the blade in his hand glinted as it sliced through the vegetation. As distant as his home was, he had never seen a king, but he had imagined a noble figure within the firelight as the village sang together on harvest evenings. And when he returned there, clad in a mantle of white fur and bearing the great antlers, a king he would be, in their eyes at least. 

The thinning undergrowth revealed a river, and the hunter took a moment to discern where the creature had leapt from one muddy bank and plunged into the trees on the other side. He hissed as icy water licked at his ankles, his feet sinking into fine silt. At the middle of the crossing the water rose no deeper than his knees, but there was a powerful undertow. The swift current left nothing but polished stone beneath, and to slip was to be dragged under. 

On the far shore, the river had eaten away at its banks, exposing the trees’ tangled roots. And what odd trees they were, leaves blotched with yellow and red even in the spring, broader on one side than the other, with cobwebbed veins. He pulled a branch closer to investigate, he knew every plant in the woods and yet this one was foreign to him. But the tree bore no fruit and thus little interest to him, and he continued his pursuit.

Further down the trail, a lingering doubt tempted him to take one last look at the strange grove. But when he turned to the trees on the riverbank, they were stark and lifeless, with no color at all.

There was not time to waste. As he moved forward, the trunks around him became taller and thicker, the forest deeper. The dappled light that had fallen across his skin faded to thin and watery threads. As the morning dragged on to the middle of the day, a coolness crept up through the shade from the damp earth. Feeling a pang of hunger, the hunter took a ripe, red fruit from a tree as he passed, but the flesh was bitter with an unpleasant cold wateriness, and he discarded it after a few bites.

His attention was caught by tracks left in a patch of mud, perpendicular to the path he was taking. They were clearly not those of the stag, yet he was unable to identify them, and stared curiously. The gait was strange, as though the creature had legs of uneven length, and the tracks became larger and further apart, the footprints deeper as they continued, until they reached firm ground again. His hand tightened around the hilt of his knife. Whatever had left this trail, he hoped not to meet.

He glanced at the sky, wondering how much time had passed here, but the trees blocked it so completely it was difficult to tell. From the few drops of sunlight that fell through, it seemed that the sun was still high, but clouds diffused the light and east merged with west. The hunter hesitated, uncertainty prickling. Perhaps he should turn back, before he truly lost his way. He felt that he was drawing closer to the center of something, every direction leading inexorably inward. As he oriented himself in the forest, broken branches and a smear of blood on rough bark caught his eye. He smiled. Perhaps he was closer than he thought.

When he proceeded through the broken undergrowth, he came to a rocky drop. He narrowed his eyes, plotting a safe path, before commencing his climb down. The stone was rough and biting under his fingertips. He slipped on loose gravel and caught himself on the rock face, peeling fingernail from skin and leaving a trail of singular bloodied fingerprints down the handholds to the next ledge, along with hissed curses. There was a sound from above, and he looked up, heartbeat spiking more than was warranted. Just a bird, just a bird. But how far it was to the top of the cliff- further than he thought he had climbed. He paused on the cliff face, taking a deep breath to steady himself.

At the bottom of the cliff, he leapt the last of the distance, still breathing hard. He noticed the horns first, rising like a twisted bramble from the earth, the rest of the body coated in mud and gloom. Had it fallen from the cliffs, charging blindly forward? He approached, the creature was still and dead, and now he could see that its rib cage was open, savaged by a predator that he could not identify. What beast left claw-marks so deep, tore flesh so cleanly from bone?

The hunter frowned. This couldn’t be his stag. There would not have been time for the predator to kill and eat and leave without him catching sight nor sound of it. The corpse was so bloodied and dirty that it was impossible to tell what color the animal had been in life. And now he could see that the torn flesh was beginning to putrefy, the blood leaking dark across the ground, the stench rank. Movement caught his eye and he looked closer, only to jerk back in disgust. Within the confines of the rib cage was a wriggling black mass. Caterpillar-like, with beaded eyes and sharp forelegs leading plump bodies. Fur-like spines covered them, the tips exuding droplets of a dark red and noxious looking fluid. The neck of the animal was curled around its body in a broken mess, and as he looked into its sunken, whited-over eye, he caught a glimpse of something dark squirming behind the eyeball. He stumbled backward, swallowing a powerful urge to retch.

He retreated from the base of the cliff, back into the shadowy cloaking of the forest. But the cool air was now a rising chill, the knowledge that the gloom hid whatever else was in the forest as well as it hid him. Yet he did not head back the way he came. Ascending the cliff would be a tiring endeavor, his body protested, and so he resolved to find another way around. There was still the lingering hope of not returning empty-handed. Perhaps the Gods would grant him luck yet.

So he thought, but his legs had begun to feel as cold and mushy as the mud they trod through. Time and direction were lost. Ahead, there was a faint patch of light, perhaps a clearing. His vision narrowed to that sole source of light.

He emerged into the clearing and the skies had opened, dim and grey, muting the colors of the world. The raindrops ran murky and dark off the leaves and trees. Within this space, like black brushstrokes, stood the charred beams of fallen structures. There had been a village here.

A village, burnt. A village abandoned and not spoken of. A village concealed.

_ Great and small consumed by flame... _

Could it have been coincidence? A lightning strike on a small hamlet, with none left to tell the tale? His instincts told him it was not so, there had been too many portents on the path he had taken here. Too many things out of place. Too many warnings unheeded.

The rain fell black, clinging to his cheeks like soot-laden tears, and the air was heavy with dread and something else, something wet and heavy that clung to the inside of his lungs and seemed to be fighting its way back out. He was coughing now. Coughing and coughing, down on his knees, retching up the bitter fruit along with bile. His hands sank through a crust of ash into sodden, slimy earth. He struggled to his feet, smearing mud on his knees and thighs as he pushed off. He had to escape.

His head spun, somehow he had stumbled into the center of the village, and the charred foundations looked the same in every direction. A circular well stood here as the only thing unburnt, and he dare not look inside, into the core of this place. He looked to the sun for guidance, but it was hidden, clouds of a sickly storm-green diffusing the light. But he must, he must. Leaning on a hurried prayer, he set off in an unknown direction.

His legs dragged, heavy and numb, and he stopped to vomit again and again, seized by a bodily tremor that grew more violent each time. Around him appeared grey stones, first a brick here and there, then piles of rubble, and finally identifiable walls and buttresses, ruined as they were. A fortress had stood here, stones vast and thick and perfectly hewn, as if by Titan’s own hand, into smooth monolith. Not a grain of sand could have fit in the joinery. Why, then, did it seem as he headed for the center of this place, that these mighty walls had fallen  _ outward? _

In the half-light, few distinct shadows were cast, but the tower looming before him was black nonetheless. Abandoned. Alone. His legs failed and he fell to his knees, then slumped forward. The mud was so cool on his heated cheek.

His eyes opened to a clear sky, the moon hanging above in dusky purple, a rim of orange on the horizon. He lay there, on his back, beholding the cold and distant stars as they appeared. The tower slit open above him, glowing red tracing the outlines of its strange geometry. He could do nothing but watch, feverish, as these colors danced before his vision.

When all was dark his strength finally returned to him, and he rose once more. It could only have been the intervention of the Gods. He resolved to return, to warn others of this place, that they might not be as foolish as him.

The distance receded under his feet, he moved with a renewed energy, as though the night chill fed his veins. There was at last a trace of light on the horizon as he emerged from the forest, still thin and colorless. He knew the village that lay before him, had stayed there in preparation for the hunt.

The dawn cast long, thin shadows ahead of the hunting party that emerged from the village, haloed by the rising sun. “Brothers,” he called to them, but it emerged from his dry throat as a creaking groan. He spoke again, and this time they reacted to the sound.

“What is it?  _ What is it? _ ”

“It spoke!” cried one of them, and the others tightened their hands around their weapons. Crossbows were wound, swords drawn, lances readied. The first bolt pierced his shoulder, and the blood that dripped down the shaft to splatter on the ground was an inky black, smoking like the remains of a fire. He caught himself as he fell, with a hand that had sprouted jagged and splintered claws where his torn fingernails had been.  _ Help me, _ he tried to say, tried to plead.  _ Something terrible has happened. I don't know. I don't know. _ His bellows were cut short by the teeth of the hunting dogs in his throat and the iron-tipped lances in his lungs. He forced himself up on trembling arms, and succeeded only in rolling onto his back, swords piercing through him into the earth below. Beyond the shadowed figures standing over him, each towering toward the sky, was the light of the sun.

It  _ burned. _

**Author's Note:**

> Enough time has passed since I wrote this that I'm beginning to feel rather critical of my execution, but I'll try not to go on about that here. What I do find interesting is the concept of the Starscourge as an alien entity that arrived on the Meteor, an outside-context problem that even Eos' Gods struggle to fight and are themselves vulnerable to infection by. (Compare and contrast FFVII's Jenova). From the viewpoint of an ancient villager who knows nothing, it's a fantastic source of horror. There's a nod here in the direction of The Color Out Of Space.
> 
> While I could only vaguely hint at it in the story, I was also toying with parallels to nuclear containment- another mostly invisible, mutation-causing force that can persist for thousands of years. The tower in this story is intended to be a similar structure to Costlemark, and an attempt by Solheim's citizens to contain one of the original scourge outbreaks (It didn't work).
> 
> Also, I didn't quite spell this out in the ending, but this is "Spread of the Starscourge" so congratulations, random hunter, on being patient zero of a new outbreak! I'm sure those villagers will thank you...


End file.
